Matchnight: D.C. United vs. Houston Dynamo

Greetings from RFK Stadium. August heat. Pregame youth matches on the field. D.C. Rollergirls (Scare Force One! D.C. Demoncats! Cherry Blossom Bombshells!) promoting the start of their league at the neighboring Armory by skating around the stadium grounds. The TD Bank mascot (with an oversized, lime-green trapezoid head. No, it is not United's new reserve keeper). Two worst clubs in MLS. Yes, RFK is the place to be.

Kickoff: 7:30 p.m. ET.TV: Comcast SportsNet/DC, Direct Kick.

Alumni news: Fred scored for Philadelphia today in a 3-0 victory over Chivas USA. Carey Talley, sent to New York for a second-round draft pick 10 days ago, injured a hamstring 40 minutes into his Red Bulls debut Friday and will probably be sidelined at least a week.

I can't believe Najar will stick around long on with this group of "players". How many chances does the kid have to create for Allsopp and Hernandez to miss? If I were him I'd take the first decent offer that comes my way.

I can't believe Najar will stick around long on with this group of "players". How many chances does the kid have to create for Allsopp and Hernandez to miss? If I were him I'd take the first decent offer that comes my way.

I knew we would lose when I saw the AR chatting it up with the Houston staff during warm-ups. He should have been warming-up so that he would at least be in position to make a correct Offside call . . . instead of just making them up.

One thing I can say for certain is that Seattle had Roller Derby really rolling long before they were sniffing it here. Eff the Flounders anyway.

When I left that town I never imagined it would be possible that the Sonics would straight up stop playing at Key Arena and move to Oklahoma of all places, but factor in the fact that Roller Derby is THE thing to go to the Key these days for is incredible....

Hey if United gets moved to Baltimore, perhaps the DC Roller Girls could take over the lease at RFK and host the Balmer' Girls? I'd got to that, but you might have to throw in a tractor pull for me and Ron16 though. I'll bring a keg...

I don't know what I saw tonight. My brain really cannot comprehend it. I bought season tickets to see professional soccer, and this wasn't professional.

For 60-65 minutes, the only thing professional level about the Dynamo were all the g-dd-mned professional fouls. For the last half-hour there wasn't anything professional about how DC United played. And the refs??!!!?? The #@#$%&* refs?? THere are games when the refs blow one or two big calls, and then there are the rare gems when the refs get it pretty much all wrong, from start to finish. This was mostly the latter category. Professional? If MLS doesn't fix this stuff, I"m freakin' done...outta here.

I hate to blame the refs, when DCU still blew chances to put it away and then staged what might be their most memorable collapse yet. It's an old, tired tale, and I'm sick of paying to watch DC dominate games for the first 60, 70 or even 80 minutes and still find a way to lose. Even more, though, I'm sick of watching rank amateurs -- not even good amateurs -- try to pass for professional refs.

The scoreboard didn't show a decent replay, but I was pretty sure Allsopp was onside for his rebound goal. In fact, I'm pretty sure the AR ahd no clue and just guessed because he didn't even see Allsopp until after Ostad gave up the rebound

That wasn't even the worst offside call. There were at least two that were even more blatantly bad. THe worst was the in the first half. A long ball came at Allsopp on the left flank. Allsopp definitely came back from an offside position. THe thing is he knew it, an let the ball go through to Najar (I think it was Najar, but my memory might be failing me). Najar was onside by at least 5 yards when the ball was played. Yet , the AR put up his flag. I don't know if he wasn't seeing it right, whether he thought Allsopp played the ball, or whether he doesn't know the rules..

THe ref wasn't much better -- constantly warning the Dynamo about their Paul Bunyan imitations, and then handing out yellows like candy to United every time a Dynamo player started rolling on the ground. I don't know -- maybe he just saves his yellow cards for the second half, instead of trying to be consistent.

I'm seriously considering not renewing my tix. DCU needs to put out a more professional team, and MLS needs to acknowledge they have to find a way to identify and develop better refs. Tonight's display was utterly despicable.

We should have gone up 2-0 and spared ourselves this misery, and maybe we even did with Allsopp. But one way or another, we hardly ever get two goals, so there's plenty of opportunity for misery. That said, I liked (in addition to Najar) Hernandez, Boskovic, Quaranta (for work rate, not for ball-blasting), James, Jakovic, and Perkins (whose fault this wasn't), and would keep all of them in the first 11 (while Hamid develops). Allsopp's problem is not that he doesn't work hard, it's that he will never be a guy who scores 12 goals a season, which is what we need. Of course he'd have had a tap-in if Najar had fed him the ball rather than shooting, yet I'm glad Najar didn't. We need someone to be excited about.

As for the referees, players and coaches don't get that worked up in the absence of seriously inconsistent and/or bad calls.

wow - more crazy officiating. RSL plays a ball through the box where it hits Marvell Wynne's moving arm. The ref points to the spot - tough break for Colorado, but it appears to be the correct call. Colorado goes nuts, prompting the ref to go talk it over with the AR, and he then reverses the call and awards a drop ball. How do you reverse a PK call? But then RSL ties it up with seconds left anyhow on a night with a full house and awesome environment in Rio Tinto.

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